Antiquatis

We are redesigning the main web site to better match the Sanctuary Project concepts. It will be in a state of flux for a while. I have preserved the original website at: http://antiquatis.info so all the information, library, etc. is still there and publicly available.

Since Antiquatis was the first site I created with the Drupal software, I didn't know it well enough to do a proper job with a lot of the 'internals', so I'm reloading everything from scratch. You will need to create a new login on the main site, once I get it installed and running (I don't want to port over all the spammers that originally registered on the original site, before I had the 'captcha' protections in).

Give me a few days to get everything loaded and configured. I'm leaving the Forums unchanged for the moment. Plenty of other things to take care of first.

I want to bring up for discussion the use of Drupal as the content platform for the website. I'm an advocate of moving away from pre-packaged (even if they are good) content management systems because there is a tendency to be locked into their code base when you build a website upon one.

I know the primary reason LB used Drupal was for it being the best open source PHP powered content management system available and it didn't require him to write all of the underlying code from scratch (which is a lengthy process).

However, I am helping out now and I have a large collection of code from many content management web applications I've built over the last few years that would give Antiquatis a home brewed, PHP powered, and content managed web application. This, in my opinion, would be best because I have the skill, time, and code to build it; it won't be dependent upon the Drupal codebase and it can be modified/extended with more ease as it will be custom to the needs of Antiquatis.

I also think the Antiquatis.org front page is too busy, visually. A redesign would focus on a fluid and minimal layout with ample whitespace and just enough content to keep the visitor interested but not so much that they don't know where to start.

I will begin with a mock-up of the potential redesign on Monday along with a new codebase and an outline of features that I can think of as being necessary for the Antiquatis website and collaborators. Some of this development will be done in parallel with the Central Information project which will proceed slower, as I think a solidification of the Antiquatis presence and getting the code base up to speed is first priority so full focus can be spent on Central Information when servers are setup and ready.

I will post up the mock-ups as I work on them and will post up a web application requirements outline and mind map for the Antiquatis application as soon as possible.

Also, LB, all of the development will happen on my at home sandbox server so I don't pollute the Antiquatis server...

I had custom code "last incarnation" of Antiquatis... the nicest thing about an existing CMS is the thousands of other people contributing and supporting it, so we don't have to write, test and debug every single feature--and there are plenty of features to pick from, as well as documentation on how to write more. I prefer custom code primarily because it is far more secure--the second a security exploit is "fixed" in a Drupal update, you've got all the bots searching for people who haven't updated that module, trying to get their foot in the door. And there are a LOT of updates published for Drupal and its modules... another drawback of canned CMS is that they aren't written by professional software engineers, and are very "ad hoc."

But, using Drupal allowed me to focus on CONTENT, versus coding.

1st incarnation was done in FrontPage, 2nd incorporated php/database into FrontPage for content, 3rd was custom database/OOP/php-driven, 4th was Drupal.


I would like to hear what others have to say about content and flow for the site. I'm a technical person, so I prefer "condensed" information; I hate sites that babble on and on, and you have to read through pages of data to find links to what you are looking for. But I suppose for the concepts presented on Antiquatis, a more wizard-like approach would be more suitable, to just walk people through the concepts sequentially.


Features that I want (and Drupal has):

• Secure, online editing (access control to who can change what and how).
• What-you-see-is-what-you-get editing (using CKeditor now, which is pretty nice).
• Version control of content (create new versions, purge old, diff, revert)
• Ability to moderate posts/comments made by users or to specific places (like forums, topics, etc).
• Integrated Forum.
• Import/Export different formats (pdf, docbook, html, word, openoffice, etc)
• Good CSS support for web, print and other media types. My "custom" Antiquatis used XML/XSLT/CSS, which was very easy to deal with because content was separated from presentation.
• A GOOD, multimedia file attachment system, so you can upload images, audio, video, etc. to be included on the page you are editing.
• GOOD attachment storage and maintenance; selectable directories, getting rid of unused files, not duplicating attachments for every page.
• Simple process to include multimedia in WYSIWYG editor, from both attached files and external sources.
• Integrated, full duplex email interface that can send new/updated posts and users can post/reply via email (so-so in Drupal).
• Search engine "friendly" URLs
• Support for subdomains (Drupal's domain module is OK, but it's an add-on, not a part of the system).
• TOP-NOTCH SECURITY; who can access what pages/features based on username or IP (for bots); blocking access to abusers.
• Detailed search engine + topic mapping (user-defined, detailed indexing of content, down to paragraph, at least). Drupal's "taxonomy" is a good start, but isn't dynamic enough.
• Bookmarking content and annotations (for research; set a bookmark and be able to attach personal/public notes to it).
• OpenID support.
• Time zone support.
• Multi-lingual support (Drupal has an extensive system, but I haven't really used it).
• Dynamic menus/AJAX so pages don't have to constantly reload.
• Modular construction with hooks, so you can add/modify features without having to patch code (like phpBB does).
• RSS feeds.
• Statistical tools; page visits, referrer, etc.
• I really like the Drupal "Views" module, that allows you to create dynamic page content through database queries. For example, the frontpage is a view that shows the first 10 entries of anything added or updated for the subdomain you are visiting.
• Another nice Drupal feature is "CCK", the Content Construction Kit, which allows you to create custom pages with attached fields. I use that on the RS sites for the catalog, where I can have a "Product" page with a price, ISBN, my cost, weight, dimensions, etc. and don't have to create a separate database table for it. This could be integrated into a topic reification system.

I'm sure there are more; I'll update as I think of them.


You can use antiquatis.net for releases when you get something working, so people can check it out. Please use a repository so others can access/contribute code. Also I suggest using tools common to Mac, Linux and Windows (through XP--I wouldn't push Vista or "7" on anyone!)

Couple things that Drupal does not do, that would be nice:

Menus: be able to control what entries a menu contains, based on user privileges. If a user does not have privs to access a specific menu item, it should not be displayed. If all the menu items don't have privs to access, then the entire menu should not be displayed.

Blocks: In Drupal, the theme for a subdomain controls the placement of blocks on the screen, but not the parameters for displaying them, which are global. For example, if I select "authenticated users" to see the "Recent Users" block, then every theme uses that setting, unless I duplicate the block for a specific circumstance.

Menu security is a biggie... I would like to control, for example, what material is available in the library to anonymous users, authenticated users, and users working on specific projects (via roles).

I also cleaned up the front page a bit; removed the right-side menu for anonymous users. You'll only get the 'recent contents' menu on the front page after you log in.